Dallas All-Con 2014 Part 2 – ComicAttack.net

Hello, and welcome back to more fun from Dallas All-Con! The first part of my overview of the convention covered the entertainment offered Thursday and Friday. This post will cover Saturday and Sunday. Overall, I did fewer activities, but there were two more great costume/cosplay competitions, so prepare for a ton of photos of fantastic costumes. By the way, if you’ve seen anything to draw your interest in my coverage, tickets for next year’s All-Con are already on sale!

Unfortunately I missed Saturday morning’s activities due to an upset stomach, but they included another Doctor Horrible sing-along, as well as the wedding (Yup!) of Josh Powers and Niki Moffre. So congratulations to them! That was followed up by a 501st photo shoot (a grand group of Star Wars cosplayers who can be seen at conventions across the country). There were a lot of steampunk oriented activities through Saturday, including a costume contest. There were also panels from the media guests, including a makeup panel with Face Off‘s Heather Henry. For those interested in dollfies, there was an exhibition and costume contest just for the dolls! What drew my attention, however, was Mu Epsilon Kappa’s Middle Earth Jeopardy. Not only did I attend, I entered. Prospective contestants had to answer qualifying questions before hand, which I found pretty easy. Deception! The game was hard! Only two qualified contestants showed up, and the girl I played against stomped all over me. She’s my age, but had been reading the books since she was eight (I’ve only been reading them since college, sadly, though I have read all of them once through), plays the LotR tabletop RPG, and plays LotR trivia games (two things I don’t do). Not only did she totally show me up, she was quicker on the buzzer than I was. Importantly, however, it was FUN. So much fun, and the girl I played against was totally cool. In the end, she beat me with something close to 13,000 points to my poor 2,500 or so. Quite embarrassing. Apparently I need to study up on my maps, because there were a lot of geographical questions I was clueless on. We split the prizes between us, with my fellow player walking away with a gorgeous poster and some lip gloss, while I took home a Pop! Legolas and some Lembas-flavored tea from Adagio Teas.

After the contest I went to get some lunch with a friend. Not too far from the convention was Belt Line, and local residents know everything can be found there, so we brought back some delicious Los Lupes. I did want to note that a convention mainstay (I keep seeing her at Anime Fest), Cris Gale, was at All-Con to play her ocarina for everyone. Dressed as Princess Zelda, she played on the convention floor, and also held a concert. The big events for Saturday were the regular costume contest, and the fan-favorite Burlesque show. This is a regular event at All-Con, which sells a set amount of premium seats, then allows the rest of the seats to be filled for free on a first come-first served basis. I was going to attend, and even showed up to stand in line at 8:30. But the scheduled time of 9pm came along, and I was still standing in line. After half an hour of my anxiety taking me on a roller coaster while being stuck in an unmoving line, I was utterly exhausted, and turned in to my hotel room instead. I’ve purchased a ticket for next year, so hopefully I’ll be able to attend. Also that night: speed dating, a Dr. Who cosplay panel and photo shoot, Texas Hold ‘Em, the All-Con Gathering of Heroes dance, and a double feature of some old sci-fi movies.

The rest of this post is brought to you by All-Con’s fabulous cosplayers. Enjoy! (Please note that I don’t include every participant in the following photos. Some of them I just couldn’t manage a decent photo of, but I do have better photos of them taken elsewhere that I’ll post in the third part of this write up!)

Now, while there were plenty of panels and photo shoots happening on Sunday (seriously, a bunch of panels for a Sunday!), the draw for me was the Superhero Sunday costume contest run by Bobby Blakey and BDG Studios. Heroes and villains could participate, and there were also plenty of things given away from comics to movies. That pretty much wrapped up my weekend, since I had to check out of my hotel at noon, but it was a total blast all four days. The final part of this write up will include a list of vendors and various people I met at the convention, as well as cosplay photos from around the convention floor, so be sure to come back for a final look at All-Con 2014!